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The city of Beaver Falls lays claim to the first blast furnace in Beaver County.
A blast furnace was added to David Hoopes' saw works on the western side of the Beaver River in what was then called Brighton in 1804. Two years later, the firm was known as Hoopes, Townsend & Co. and an iron forge was added to the operation.
The company experienced several changes of ownership - Isaac Wilson and Oliver Ormsby were two of its owners - until a lack of timber for charcoal firing the furnace and other problems forced its close around 1826.
Another early charcoal furnace in Beaver County was the "Bassenheim" furnace, so named after its owner, Detmar Basse, a German national. The furnace, located in the northeastern section of the county, about one mile west of the Butler County community of Zelienople, was put into operation in 1814.
After Basse sold his interest in the furnace, the operation was kept alive another five years with Daniel Beltzhoover managing the works. The lack of adequate timber for charcoal and a dwindling capital supply forced its close.
Robert Townsend & Co. erected a plant for the production of iron wire in Fallston, along the Beaver River in 1828. A number of dimensions were added to the original wire mill as the century progressed and the heirs of Robert Townsend took control of the firm.
The Harmonites, who owned several hundred acres of land in Beaver Falls, founded the Beaver Falls Cutlery Co. in 1867 and produced a wide variety of knives and related products. The firm was moved to Beaver Falls from Rochester in 1866. In 1881, the Harmonites purchased the Beaver Falls Steel Works, and sold the operation in 1893 to James May, who managed the firm into one of the most successful industrial enterprises in the highly-industrialized area.
However, May sold out to Crucible Steel Co. of America in 1900 and the works were forever idled.
Refined blooms, bars and billets were the fare of the Beaver Falls Rolling Mill, established by J. S. Craft & Co. in 1879. A fire in 1888 destroyed the facilities and they were never replaced.
A plant for the manufacture of merchant steel, wire, rods, nails, fencing wire, steel mats and related products was started in Beaver Falls in 1883 by the Hartman Steel Co. Several years later, Andrew Carnegie purchased the plant. and then sold it to the Consolidated Steel and Wire Company. Consolidated, in turn, sold the plant to the American Steel and Wire Co.
Hartman Manufacturing Co. built works at Beaver Falls for the making of "Hartman" steel wire mats and picket fences. However, the plant was relocated in 1892 to Ellwood City and later to New Castle, Lawrence County.
The first steelmaking facility in Aliquippa was in operation in 1892 for the production of open hearth and crucible steel. The Aliquippa Steel Works, as it was called, was later purchased by the Crucible Steel Co. of America.
A rash of small, specialty steel operations flourished in the Beaver County area, mainly in Beaver Falls, in the mid and late 1800s.
The turn of the century saw three of the county's largest and most successful steel plants put their roots down.
The Ambridge plant of United States Steel Corp.'s American Bridge Division had its beginning in 1900 when officials of the Berlin Iron Co. purchased 40 acres of land along the east side of the Ohio River to construct a steel fabricating facility. When Berlin Iron was merged with U.S. Steel one year later, the project was delayed and full-scale construction did not get underway until 1902 when additional acreage was purchased from the Harmony Society.
The plant, largest structural steel fabricating facility in the free world, was completed in 1904. In that same year, the townspeople incorporated Ambridge, which bears the name of the plant.
Meanwhile, across the river in the town of Woodlawn, later to be known as Aliquippa, land acquisiton was underway at the site of an amusement park and farm land by the Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp. for a steel-making facility. Construction began in 1907 with the aid of a $20,000,000 mortgage bond and steel production began two years later. Today, the Aliquippa Works of the Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp. is the county's largest single employer, boasting an hourly work force of more than 9,000 persons. The corporation ranks as the nation's seventh-largest steel producer.
,Another major steel maker, the Babcock & Wilcox Co., came to Beaver Falls in 1904.
Already established then as a major supplier of boilers in the country, B&W selected Beaver Falls to produce muchneeded tubing.
Today, B&W has grown from an original work force of 90 men in one facility to more than 7.000 persons in three facilities. The firm ranks in the top 25 domestic steel makers.
Beaver County for many years laid claim to one of the nation's premier manufacturers of wrought iron products in the nation. However, a decline in demand for wrought iron eventually spelled the end for the H. K. Porter Co. Ambridge plant, which permanently shut its doors in 1969 after decades of operation.